“Every morning the world is created.”—Mary Oliver
The first year E-Squared came out, I was interviewed on hundreds of podcasts. And I often described this weird lab manual of a book as a way for readers to experience miracles and magic with their own two eyes.
“Forget what others say,” I’d tell my interviewers. “To really get this truth that we are all loved beyond anything we can imagine, we need proof…with our own ever-loving eyeballs.”
These days I might answer differently. While I’m infinitely grateful for the pictures presented by my own human eyeballs, I find the best things in my life erupt from the invisible, from that which cannot be named. Or planned.
Using my own two eyes, I tend to see things I’ve trained my neuropathways to look for — usually some version of what has happened before.
But the more I let go and enter this different reality field where unexplained, unplanned things happen on the regular, the less interested I am in my eyeball’s limited purview.
That’s why I often share stories that stretch the narrative, that burst right through the preconceived limitations for which we often settle.
So when a reader named Karen suggested those of us in this party-called-a-blog submit stories of their own miracles and unexpected gifts, I thought “Perfect. Let’s start with yours.”
So, thank you, Karen, and thank you everyone who might feel called to share a story with the potential to liberate us from our boxes.
Take it away, Karen:
“Dressed in Miracles”
“Clothes shopping is not my favorite thing. It’s ranks right up there with dental procedures. I prefer shopping for things I need, like items on the grocery list.
“While talking to my buddy Lori, I mentioned I had a wedding to attend and the dress code was fall formal. Far from being a fashionista, I informed her that I didn’t know exactly what that meant and bemoaned the fact that the few casual items sitting in my closet (e.g., jeans and long sweaters) weren’t going to make the cut.
“This serendipitous conversation, unknown to me at the time, is how the Universe set the stage.
“I did the things I always do: visualize the details, google to get a sense of what’s out there. I began picturing a long and flowy maroon dress with sleeves or straps. Something easy and breezy that would let me wear my cute dress boots (no heels, please) and wouldn’t make me feel like a sausage inside its casing.
“Just a few simple requests of a perimenopausal woman putting her manifestation into motion.
“Two weeks later, Lori reached out with a simple text asking if I had found my dress. I had to confess I hadn’t started looking and then began my list of excuses: it’s hard to find petite sizes, it’ll cost me a small fortune, yada yada.
“I soon realized Lori didn’t text to hear a litany of excuses. This solutions-oriented gal wanted to tell me about a long, maroon-colored dress she noticed at the Salvation Army priced at $14.99.
“Could it be? Could my dream dress be less than 5 miles from my house? Open mind, open mind!”
“I casually mentioned to my husband on the way out the door, “I’m going to pick up my dress for the wedding.” He looked dumbfounded but stopped questioning my signs from the Universe a long time ago.
“I made a beeline for the formal stuff and began karate-ing my way through the tight racks of gowns.
“I didn’t find the maroon dress right away. What I did find were a few other dresses that might work – aiding and abetting my plan B because a teeny, tiny (but still loud) part of me wondered if the Universe could send me the perfect dress.
“When I finally spotted the maroon dress, I questioned whether it would fit, whether it looked like “me,” and whether I could really pull it off. I took it to the changing room with four other dresses.
“The others fit OK. They were a little big, but I decided I could make two of them work.
Even though I had sprinted to the shop with fairy dust in my shoes, I was already accepting less than what might possibly be perfect.
“Then it was time to welcome the Miracle.
“The maroon dress zipped without struggle, the length was perfect. It had straps and sleeves and a beautiful heart-shaped neckline which looked beautiful on my frame.
“My pleasant smile turned into a big one which turned into laughter which then turned into tears.
“The perfect dress, noticed by a thoughtful friend browsing a thrift store, in the color I visualized, which fit me like no other dress, and was the right price for my freelance writer budget, came to me the way most miracles arrive – unanticipated, not fully believed in the moment, and with more love than we feel we deserve.
“And I think once we overcome that last part, they then become an everyday part of our ordinary yet precious lives.”
Thank you again, Karen, and please post a photo of you in your dress at the wedding.
Anyone else care to share?
#222 Forever!
Pam Grout is the author of 22 books including E-Squared, Thank & Grow Rich , The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World)and her latest, The Ego’s Playbook.
20 Responses
As always, delightful.
Pam, I love you!
Thank you Pam for sharing this wonderful post: and thank you also to Karen for sharing her account of “discovering” the perfect dress.
Yes, I would like to share an account. Thanks to my intense interest in the law of attraction teachings (which at the age of twenty I clearly didn’t understand), I was guided to continue to pursue the call of my heart. How could the nature of our thoughts and feelings change the nature of our circumstances? At times, my journey seemed long, but thanks to the Living Miracle in which we are apparently immersed, answers came. Authors (such as you, Pam—“Thank You”)showed up with books that pointed the way; gurus, mystics, and sages shared their messages through interviews and YouTube videos; and all the “time” Desire, itself, desire kept the lamplight of the will to know burning.
Why, oh why, do the nature of our habitual thoughts and feelings make such a difference? Because this (daily “reality”) is our waking-state dream and Consciousness the divine Creator.
Blessings. 🙏❤️
I always wonder…was the dress manifested or were you receiving your destiny and saw glimpses of it as the universe led you there with the most delicious of bread crumbs? Hope to see the photo! It sounds lovely!
Hello from sunny Brisbane, Australia 🦘 🦘
A lovely story from Karen and her maroon dress. Here in Queensland, Australia, maroon is the state colour particularly relating to Rugby League football. We pronounce it mar-own. Thank you for another wonderful post. Kindness rules.
Pam, it’s always so much fun to hear from you. Thank you!💖
When I first found your book (E-Squared) I did the Dude Abides exercise – asking for a clear sign that God/the universe/a loving and infinite force exists. I asked for an incontrovertible sign within 48 hours. The following day, I was on my usual bus home and I happened to look up from my book at a random point. I thought I was hallucinating: outside, amidst the bushes in a small park beside the road, there was a large, bright pink, neon sign that literally said “THIS IS A SIGN”.
It had not been there the day before and there was seemingly no explanation for it. I later found out it was part of an outdoor art exhibit that had just been put up. But obviously, it felt like a VERY clear sign. Just now I went back to the relevant pages of your book. I had to laugh when I read that you had written , “We are going to give the FP exactly 48 hours to give us a sign, a clear sign, a sign that cannot be written off. Neon would work.” I got my neon sign!
Lovely story from Karen. Thank you for sharing.
I have a number of stories I could share. But that will be for another moment.
Time to go fill the hummingbird feeders and get ready for my work week.
I wish everyone a week of glorious goodness!
xox
Hi Pam,
I’ve been following you for many years and you are an inspiration. I recently lost my 31 year old son about a month ago. The grief is overwhelming intense. One thing I’ve always wondered is how you or anyone who works on manifesting good things even for our kids end up experiencing such a loss? Probably no answers to this but moving forward how does one try and keep creating and focus on the good
So sorry for your loss, Tammy!!!
Can certainly understand your loss as I lost both of the people I loved most in the world in 2019 and both of the same disease – pancreatic cancer – my husband and my sister. The way I have dealt with it is to not think of them as “lost”, just in a different dimension. I still have a relationship with them, even though it is a bit different. I still ask Michael to handle certain things for me that he did when on planet Earth – the weather, finding a parking place, driving to places safely, etc. With my sister I share books and “girl”things like we have always. Some people may think of me as crazy, but it really helps me to live my life as “normally” as I can. Particularly after the lockdown and losing all my friends over that mess. When I feel alone, I curl up and feel Michael’s arms around me. I’m never alone as long as he is around. For me, they never left. Sometimes it takes some time for them to adjust to their new environment and to come to you, but they will. They are always near you and will show you signs that they are. As an old woman, “alone” in the world, this method has helped me to continue to move forward still working on my mission in life until it is time for me to pass into that other dimension and be even closer to those I have loved the most.
XXOO
I’ve been a “street” person since the end of 2023 – sleeping in my car or couch surfing, and spent a year helping a friend with cancer (and her 11 cats I’m severely allergic to) when her husband passed away.
Last winter I spent time in Sarasota, FL, at one of the libraries there while I was waiting for the weather to change so I could head north to New England. There was another street person who hung out there a lot. In the beginning I wasn’t too sure of her as she had a very belligerent demeanor and muttered to herself. I used a technique I’ve used many times before and sent her love and healing. She eventually settled down. One day, there wasn’t any place to sit, so she came over to my table and asked if she could join me while I was working on my computer. No prob. We got to know each other a little over the weeks and were friendly. One day as I was leaving, she was sitting on a bench outside when I stopped to say hello. She told me about her upcoming trip to Canada to apply for dual citizenship as her family came from and owned land there. Showed me her ticket and bus money, and stated she wanted to have enough money to do laundry before she left. I knew I had a roll of quarters in my car, but I also knew I had more than a week left of the month and very little money. Wasn’t sure exactly what to do. Told her I needed to get my computer to the car and out of the sun, but would come back to talk to her. All the way to the car, I debated with myself about what to do. I ended up grabbing the roll of quarters and taking it back to her, telling myself that I would figure out some way to make things work.
A few days later, I was in a park that I liked to go to in the morning. After a walk and a stop at the restrooms, I went back to my car. In the slit by the driver’s side door was a folded up $100 dollar bill. Was totally blown away as I hadn’t met anyone in that park that I knew and had no idea where it came from. Even took it to the bank to make sure it was real. It was more than enough money to get me thru the rest of the week until my next SSA check came in.
So it is true that what you give out, you get back 10-fold. Have many, many stories of things that have happened to me that prove that. And it is also true that The Dude Upstairs looks out after fools, so you know that He looks after me.
XXOO
This is a shortened version of a story I’m working on for my memoir—it is one of my favorite synchronicities:
During the Cold War, I made a quilt, “The Rainbow Bridge to Peace,” for a citizen-diplomacy group to take to the USSR: a bright rainbow stretched across a velvet and taffeta Earth, and multicolored satin hearts danced through iridescent clouds.
And then it disappeared.
Somewhere in the USSR.
A rather large place to lose something in.
The group thought my quilt had been presented to the Odesa Peace Committee, but when they tried to verify its location, no one could find it. Maybe it was in Moscow or Leningrad. Nobody knew for sure.
A year later, I traveled to the USSR with a citizen-diplomacy group; I was giving presentations on the role of art in global peace. I brought my little photo album of artwork, hoping someone might recognize my missing quilt.
Nobody in Moscow did.
Then in Odesa, I excitedly showed the photo to the director of the Peace Committee. Yes, he remembered the group. Yes, they had received a quilt.
But not mine.
I figured I would never know where it had ended up. Maybe what was important was to simply know that the love I had put into the quilt was being felt somewhere, whether I knew where it was or not.
In Odesa, several English-speaking families were each hosting one or two people from our group for dinner. At the meet-and-greet, I was wearing one of my wearable-art jackets. Unbeknownst to me, a fashion-conscious schoolteacher named Adda admired it from across the room and whispered to the coordinator, “I want THAT woman as my guest.”
At dinner, Adda asked about my artwork, so I handed her my little photo album.
She stopped at the photo of “Rainbow Bridge to Peace.”
“YOU made this?”
“Yes-s-s….”
Her face lit up.
“It is hanging at my school!”
What?
When I explained about its mysterious disappearance, Adda smiled and said, “This is Destiny!”
After dinner, Adda’s best friend, Ludmila, said she needed to speak to me privately and led me to the library. It turned out that my quilt really had been given to the Odesa Peace Committee. At the same event, a different quilt had been given to Adda and Ludmila’s School 119. After the formal presentation, the quilts had been placed in bags on a table.
Ludmila had fallen in love with my quilt. She knew the Peace Committee had no room to display it and that its bright colors and symbols were meant to delight children.
She hesitated. “So…when no one was looking…”
Another pause.
“…I switched the bags.”
She apologized over and over, asking for my forgiveness.
I hugged her.
“There is nothing to forgive! You got the message in the quilt—I made it to delight children! I’m thrilled that you switched it!”
We embraced, both of us in tears.
I hadn’t only found my lost quilt. I found Adda. And Ludmila.
And Ludmila found the only person in the world who could dissolve her guilt—delivered, improbably, to the seat beside her at the dinner table.
What a wonderful, amazing, delightful and heartwarming story! Thankyou so much for sharing it with us. Your story has made my day. 🥰
Thank you, Jenny! I’m always happy to share the joy! xoxoxo
When I was in high school, I simply loved reading the books of the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, because they spoke directly to my soul. Whenever a new book came out, I would buy it the same day and read it the same night, even if it meant staying up until three or four in the morning.
When “The Pilgrimage” was released, it was no different. I was fascinated by the story of Paulo Coelho’s own mystical pilgrimage along the ancient Camino de Santiago in Spain, and I decided, on the same day I read the book, that I also NEEDED to make that spiritual journey.
I also collected magazine and newspaper clippings (hey, we’re talking about the late 80s here, the internet didn’t even exist!) with interviews and other articles about Paulo Coelho and his books, always nurturing the distant dream of doing the Camino; distant because I had never traveled outside of Brazil, due to age and, mainly, financial reasons.
Little did I know that what would really lead me to the Camino would be a newspaper clipping that had nothing to do with Coelho and his work; One day, at the age of 20, I was reading the newspaper my father subscribed to (it was the 90s now, but newspapers were still made of paper…) and I came across an article on all the solar eclipses that would happen from 1994, the year we were in, to “the Year 2000” (for members of Generations Z and Alpha, 2000 used to have a first and last name because of its significance).
To my surprise, one of the solar eclipses would happen precisely in northern Spain, tracing almost exactly the route of the Camino de Santiago, on August 11, 1999.
It was at this moment that something clicked in my head: the dream of walking the Camino de Santiago, which was previously vague and distant, now had a date to happen; My reasoning was as follows: if something that was only going to happen five years from then was already printed in the newspaper, as a certainty, for me, after reading that article, it also became a certainty that I would be there, on the Camino de Santiago, to see the eclipse with my own eyes.
Cut to August 11, 1999. I am, like dozens of other pilgrims from all over the world, looking up in Spanish lands, dumbfounded by the celestial spectacle that is a solar eclipse.
This experience earned me a graduation project in journalism school, whose title was “Under the Shadow of the Eclipse,” in addition, of course, to the unwavering confidence that, just as I walked the 783 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago in 33 days, crossing the whole of Spain on foot, I would be able to achieve anything I set my mind to in my life.
Oh, and I still have that newspaper clipping on eclipses to this day.
I love this!!!
I love the delightful magic of Karen’s “Dressed in Miracles” story, and it’s a powerful reminder of how potent our imagination and desire is, and how miraculous the Unseen truly is. Thankyou Pam, and Karen, and all those who have shared their miracle stories here. I love this blog community! 🥰💃🥳
A postscript to my comment- just after I sent it I heard a woman on the news on tv say “Miracles Do Happen.” !! She was talking about her son who was born with a rare and devastating form of Epilepsy, and who had suffered dreadfully with constant seizures while still a little baby. Earlier this year he was given a new treatment that had been recently developed to specifically treat this rare condition, and he has not had a single seizure since. On his worst day before the treatment he had 74 seizures. So for him and his mum this is indeed a miracle. I had to share because it’s a wonderful story and it was such a delightful synchronicity to hear her say “Miracles Do Happen” just as I sent my comment to this “Dressed in Miracles” post. 🎉🦋🥰
I would like to share my experience I have with one of Pam’s experiments. I decided that a purple feather would show up for me within 24 hours. I have to also mention that whenever I thought about it, sometimes my mind got a little confused and instead of ‘purple’ I said ‘pink’. The day went on and nothing happened – I believe it is because subconsciously kept looking for it. Later in the day, I used an app called colour by numbers (it’s very relaxing!) and when you finish a picture it suggests other pictures. Well I finished my picture and it suggested others, and one of them was a dream catcher. I thought what are the chances the feathers would be purple…. well….!!! Yes!!!! Very very purple!!! And!!!! Some pink thrown in for good measure! I thought that was quite amusing 🙂